Cheick Kongo (16-6-2 MMA, 9-4-1 UFC) has another run in him for the UFC heavyweight title. But he’s also contemplating life beyond MMA.

“My goal right now is to get the belt and be happy with this,” he told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “Just say, ‘I did it.’ After that, I could retire.”

The French heavyweight is looking for a little bit of stability. His native country isn’t a place where MMA is welcome, so to him, the sport has been a long chain of different gyms, different countries, and different people. He’s looking to settle down.

“I’m like a gypsy,” he said. “But I’m a black gypsy.”

When MMAjunkie.com caught up to him, Kongo was in Denver helping training partner Quinton “Rampage” Jackson prepare to fight light-heavyweight champ Jon Jones. He couldn’t muster a lick of animosity for his next opponent, Matt Mitrione (5-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC), whom he fights at UFC 137, which takes place Oct. 29 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

“I have nothing to say about that,” Kongo said. “For me, that’s always the same thing. He has skills. He’s tough.”

“He never pretends something crazy about his skills,” Kongo. “He just tries to be a good fighter, as everyone. For him, it’s going to be a good step to test (himself) this much.”

Kongo has been on the UFC scene for a half-decade now. Not much gets a rise out of him. Even his most recent performance, a sensational come-from-behind knockout of Pat Barry, is no cause for celebration. It’s just another day.

“I think sometimes that somewhere those actions are great for the movie of my life,” Kongo said. “That’s my life. Everybody has a movie of their life. Mine is pretty good. Sometimes, I did a great thing at the gym, but nobody can see that except my training partners and my coach.

“If people loved [the knockout], thank you. But I just try to do my thing.”

For now, doing his thing means fighting for two or three years and then calling it a day. He’s only half into the movie of his life, after all. He has plans for a business he wants to start, but won’t say what it is.

“It’s going to start when I’m more confident and quiet,” he said. “When I say quiet, (it’s) when I’m just focused on my business, and I’m going to be focused with my own life, maybe have a wife and kid and stuff.

“Maybe I can start tomorrow. I have nothing to prove to anybody but myself. I can be in the UFC for one thing, and hopefully get to the goal as soon as possible. But if not, that’s life, so I have to stop. I have to concentrate myself on a different point of view.”

Once again, he’s been cast as the gatekeeper against Mitrione, a talented, if inexperienced fighter who’s one of the only heavyweight prospects with an unblemished octagon record. Should he beat back the up-and-comer, Kongo could be no more than two fights away from a No. 1 contender spot.

At age 36, it’s likely his last dance, and Kongo accepted that he could achieve his long-held goal of being a champion or fall short of it.

Regardless of what happens, though, there’s one last scene he’d like to include for his movie: a fight in his native France. If he could change his government’s mind about the beauty of MMA, he would consider part of his job done.

“People think that’s [expletive], it’s a messy sport just for bullies, or people [fight] with no skills,” Kongo said. “We’ve got no respect, no control, no anything. No rules. And they keep the old UFC in mind.”

“When we have the time to share a good discussion about the subject, they will learn and realize that we’re just different.”

Kongo has certainly lived a life less ordinary as a practitioner of a sometimes-controversial sport. He may be burned out through all his travels. Or maybe, he’s hit his stride.

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